The Angel and The Wolf
by Yours The Author
Summary: There was a lonely angel deep below the studio. She made do by busying herself with collecting and scavenging, but she really wanted a friend... and answers. She got one of those things one day, when she tried her luck and got close to the ink demon... and she met the wolf who had been following her around. Their adventure together began here.


Guess what time it is. Guess. Guess. Can't guess? Iiiit's fluffy friendship time! Hooray!

So, I'm back. I'm on vacation right now, but I finally figured out how to connect my laptop to the internet, so I'll be posting a story today! Since the trip is almost over, I might not post anything until after the thirteenth, but before August. Hopefully. I have something resembling a method to my madness.

Anyway, I got this idea one day while wondering how exactly Allison Angel met Tom the Wolf, so I wrote down some basic ideas on my phone and worked out the details in the past few hours to make this story. I won't keep you, so see you at the bottom of the page!

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The Angel and The Wolf

_"I was messing with things I shouldn't have been, and he… he was there."_

Alice, as they called her, shifted a piece of wood covering the entrance of what was likely just another office in this place. It took a second of grunting and shoving, but when she got it out of the way, her eyes lit up. Alice didn't know why a studio (Studio, studio… why did she know this place was a studio?) would have a room filled with metal scraps, rope, and tools, but it didn't matter. It certainly seemed no one else would be using it.

Alice made quick work of the room. She gathered rope in a large loop and hung it on her belt. She filled the pockets of the ripped, greenish jacket she wore over the dress she couldn't take off with decent looking tools. Finally came her favorite part: looking for useful things in the metal scrap pile.

For some reason, Alice felt something akin to happiness when she searched through piles of scrap, especially metal. It reminded her of something good… no, some_one_ good. Kind of like that strange wolf she'd see out of the corner of her eye sometimes when she was exploring. Despite how weird it was to be stalked by a cartoony wolf; she felt no malice from it. In fact, it almost made her feel safer while she was out and about.

Alice shook her head of wolf thoughts and lifted a large, but not too heavy, sheet of metal. Underneath was what appeared to be a mechanical arm, with some wires sticking out. The arm was just a fore arm, maybe with an extra bit at the end for an elbow joint, probably for… for what? Why would anyone need to build a robot arm that big, or at all, even?

She set the metal sheet against the wall and looked around the room. It seemed like this was all there was to find in here. _Shame,_ she thought. She picked up the arm and loosened her belt to fit the arm between it and her hip. Maybe it could be salvaged for parts?

The room rumbled suddenly, and black ink began to spill slowly down the walls of the surprisingly ink free room. She gripped the machete she had fashioned some time ago uneasily and leaned out the door into the hall. She quickly bit her free hand to stifle her gasp.

The ink demon.

It was at the end of the hall on her right, looking slowly between the two directions the hall on its side converged at. It hadn't noticed her yet, and Alice knew she should leave, hide, run, but…

Keeping her hand on her weapon, she slowly and carefully walked down the hall towards the demon. All seemed to be going well; she could almost reach out and touch it… then the floor creaked beneath her.

The ink demon whipped around and reached out to grab her.

Alice stumbled back and tripped on a raised floorboard, staring up in fear at the monster about to touch her. She didn't know a lot, but she remembered too late: don't let the ink touch you.

The ink demon smiled, but it was clearly not a happy smile. It limped up to her in the two steps separating them and slowly reached down with a gloved hand…

_Thwack!_

The ink demon stumbled back and growled, rubbing the hand that had been hit with a spare metal pipe.

The wolf that Alice had seen out of the corner of her eye before was now in plain sight, running past the ink demon and grabbing Alice's free arm. He made no sound, but his message was clear: run.

The two of them dashed away, but the ink demon recovered quickly and made chase. They scrambled over weak floor boards and puddles of ink, turning left and right until they reached a door at the end of the hall. They slammed the door behind them and looked at each other in panic as they held the door shut. The quiet didn't last long.

The door thumped against their backs as the demon tried to get in. Alice looked around the room wildly. The room was fairly large, but empty, with a door at the end and a few chairs scattered in the back. The angel and the wolf made eye contact. The wolf jerked his head towards the chairs and Alice nodded, thought she wasn't entirely sure how she knew what he meant. She ran for a chair and returned just in time; the door was close to bursting open. The wolf was visibly straining to keep the door shut. Alice was about to put the chair under the door knob when she saw ink seeping in through the cracks in the door.

"Tom, look out!"

Everything seemed to slow. Alice stared at the wolf, and he stared back. "…Tom?" Alice whispered.

Tom nodded.

"How… did I know—?"

An inky arm stretched through the cracks in the door and wrapped around Tom's left arm. He didn't scream, but his pie-cut eyes widened and his mouth opened. The ink demon's arm began to reach further up Tom's arm. Alice shook the shock away and yanked Tom out of the ink demon's reach. She stuck the chair under the door knob, grabbed Tom's right arm and pulled him after her across the room and through the other door.

*!*

This did not look good.

Alice and Tom had hurried through the halls as quickly and quietly as they could, and seemed to had evaded the ink demon by hiding in a room near Alice's "home base". That part was fine. The bad part…

"I'm so sorry, Tom," Alice whispered, the two of them staring down at his left arm. What had once been a simple black arm with a white glove was now a bubbling mess of hot ink; hot enough for Alice to feel the heat emanating from the arm shaped blob.

Tom was still silent, but he kept squinting and opening his mouth slightly, like he was trying to breath through his teeth. The bad ink seemed to be spreading up from his hand and forearm to his elbow.

Alice felt something warm slide down her cheek and turned away quickly. Tom set his good hand on her shoulder and she peeked up at him. He seemed to be the type of person to always have a dour face, but despite the pain he was in, his eyes seemed… gentle, understanding, _kind_. Alice quickly wiped away the tear and set her hand on top of his good one. She swept her eyes absently around the room, settling her gaze on the pile of tools and other things she had salvaged, including—

Alice suddenly stood up and hurried to the pile of things, tossing the unneeded objects to the side until she found what she wanted. She presented it to Tom.

"I found this metal arm when I was out searching! I don't know why it would be here, but maybe… maybe…" She quickly lost her momentum and her smile slid away. "I just thought… maybe it would help somehow. I'm sorry—"

She was about to set the arm back on the floor when Tom took it in his free hand and held it up, turning it over to examine it from all sides. He looked at her and nodded.

"You think it'll actually work? But how?"

Tom handed her the arm and tapped the side of his head. He seemed to smile at her, though it was hard to tell, given his mouth shape and snout.

"I guess you know more about this mechanical stuff than I do," Alice said. She looked the arm up and down. The hand part had three fingers and a thumb, so it was similar to the cartoony hand he'd had before, and it had a metal rod for the forearm, a joint at the arm's end, and some wires and clips hanging from the joint. It seemed to be the perfect size. But…

"How do we do this? Do we just put it over your arm, or…?"

Tom shook his head.

"That makes sense; the ink would still spread if we kept your arm, but we can't just—" Alice's eyes widened. "W-we can't just—"

Tom looked into her eyes, completely serious.

"Tom… no. I won't do it. I don't want to hurt you."

He lifted his bad arm and looked between it and her. Alice sighed and quickly wiped away another tear. "…Okay. I guess I'd just be hurting you more if I didn't."

Tom nodded. He slid off the office chair he'd been sitting on and set his bad arm on the chair seat. He closed his eyes and turned his head away.

Alice drew her machete as quietly as she could and held it just over the elbow. "Are you ready?"

He nodded.

"…I'm sorry."

*!*

"…Okay, and then I insert the wire here—no? Okay, how about here? Yes? Good." Alice pressed the wire she was holding as far into Tom's arm as it would go. When the final wire was inserted, she began to tighten the screws of the wrist. Finally, she clipped the hooks and wires at the end of the joint to Tom's overall strap. "Okay, try it now."

Tom wiggled his mechanical fingers slowly, then turned his wrist from left to right, and then bent his elbow back and forth. After a minute of this, he gave her a slow thumbs up with his new robot arm.

Alice clapped her hands and hugged Tom. He slowly put his arms around her as well. They let go after a minute, and Alice sat on the clean chair next to his. They sat in silence for a while, glancing at each other every so often. Finally, Alice turned to Tom and held out her hand. "I don't think we ever really introduced ourselves. You're Tom, right?"

Tom nodded and shook her hand. "I… don't actually know my name, so I just go by what I hear them call me: Alice."

Tom nodded, though less enthusiastically this time.

"It's okay, my name's not important. What _I_ want to know is… how did I know your name was Tom?"

Tom shrugged.

"Well, it's better than calling you 'other Boris', so Tom it is. Oh!" Alice clapped her hands again. "We can be search partners! We'll explore the studio, collect things, try to learn more about why everything happened, share my safe room… It won't be so lonely anymore! I mean…" Alice rubbed the back of her neck shyly. "If you want to, I mean…"

Tom shook slightly, as if he was laughing, and nodded.

"Thanks, Tom. It's really nice to have a friend down here." Alice stood and held her hand to Tom. He took it and let her hoist him up to his feet. They collected their things and began to make their way to Alice's safe room, hand in robot hand.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

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The End

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I know Tom and Allison got married in the game (or at least, their human selves did), but given that they don't remember each other completely, they have to work their way back up there first. This story is the beginning of that friendship, and I hope you liked it!

This was a lot of fun, and I have a poll on my profile that asks you what I should work on next. I think I know which one I want to do, but your opinion may sway my decision. If you want something you don't see on there, leave a review and tell me what you'd like to see! I might just comply if the idea is interesting enough…. Wink wonk!

Anyway, did you like this? Tell me what you thought in a review, and I'll see you soon… I hope. Until then!


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